


Let It Burn Gold

by paperwar



Category: Yozakura Quartet
Genre: Chromatic Character, Chromatic Source, Friendship, Gen, Teamwork, Youkai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperwar/pseuds/paperwar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lie about power, Hime thinks as she leaps from building to ground to building again, is that nobody tells you that it grows if you share it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let It Burn Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephemere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemere/gifts).



The lie about power, Hime thinks as she leaps from building to ground to building again, is that nobody tells you that it grows if you share it. She was born to be mayor, to be the line of defense for Sakurashin all by herself. There's Akina -- there's always been a Hiizumi to tune at the request of the mayor -- but the rise and fall of the town rests on her shoulders. She needs the love and respect of the people and the dragon in order to protect them. Alone.

So she'd always thought.

Kyosuke yells from below. The rogue youkai they're chasing wheels and charges at him, but he pushes it back with one arm. It's white, and serpentine, and gargantuan; it reminds Hime not a little of the time when the Nanagou bloomed and the streets were crowded with similar youkai.

Akina hurtles himself forward, hair already sprouting long and ragged from his head; a golden nimbus surrounds his hand as he begins to send the youkai beyond their world.

In a few seconds it's all over, the street turning quiet. She and Akina and Kyosuke are catching their breath. They grin at each other. Another job well done. Together.

Power vested in one person is by its nature unstable, weak. What it does, Hime thinks as they return to the office, is leave these lone heroes in ashes. Nobody ever pretended to her that being mayor wasn't a burden, but many of the townspeople did pretend she had to shoulder it herself. Because it meant, whether they cheered her or reviled her, they could step back themselves.

**

As a child, she'd once played a card game with Akina and Gin. Gin had learned it at school, one of those tiresome things designed to inculcate good values: there was no way to win without cooperating with at least one other player.

"I hate this," Hime had said, tossing her cards down halfway through and scattering the ones laid out in neat rows on the table, by which she and Akina and Gin were meant to negotiate.

Gin had smiled gently at her, unsurprised, while Akina sniped at her for being a poor sport.

**

The thought of being weak had always terrified her. Her days had been a fog of endless practice sessions, sometimes until she couldn't stand afterwards. If she failed, if she felt faint-hearted or lonely, it was because of her own cowardice.

When Enjin returned, it hadn't mattered. The town had to be saved. If her flawed hands were all she could sacrifice, that was what she would do.

It turned out to be true: the mayor was not able to stand alone.

After Enjin disappeared to that other world, taking Gin -- their Gin -- with him, she remembers swallowing hard. Feeling the scar across her throat pulse.

"Let's go," Akina had said, holding out a hand. She'd winced but took it, for just a moment.

He'd been warm. She remembers that.

**

"Good work," she tells them as they return to the office. As she picks up some files to review that evening, she sees there's a message on her desk: Ao and Touka are cooking dinner. When they arrive at Ao's apartment, Hime tries to peek in the pots on the stove, hoping for yakisoba. And rice. Kotoha amuses herself by conjuring up chopsticks to dive-bomb Hime's hands, driving her away from the pot lids. Hime sticks her tongue out without rancor and gives up.

"Smells good," Akina says, smiling at Touka.

Touka, blushing, protests, "I didn't really do much!"

Ao smirks and gives her a little shove. "She did most of it," she tells Akina. "She's just feeling shy for some reason, right, Touka?" Touka turns her face away, swatting at Ao and scowling.

This is what she might be doing for the rest of her life, Hime thinks, with these people. They could be here just about forever. Until they tire out or die or some other Hiizumi comes along and someone, somewhere shows up to be the next mayor.

If she'd been asked last year what she thought about being mayor, she would've growled something about stupid questions being a waste of time. And all the while the weight of her duty would press like a stone on her chest.

Today there is late sunshine coming in through the window. Akina turns on the radio. "This station is terrible!" Kotoha complains, arm reaching towards the dial. Akina darts his hand in to block her, saying, "Don't put on that awful yowling stuff you like!" As they scuffle, Ao shoves them away from the ingredients on the counter, adding her voice to the din.

Hime smiles, in a tiny, secret way, and goes to sit in a corner. There's paperwork to catch up on.

No, it wouldn't be a bad life, at all.


End file.
